On the penetration of etchant into tracks in polycarbonate

The time dependence of the uptake of NaOH/LiOH etchant in pristine polycarbonate (PC) and in PC irradiated with 3 GeV Pb ions has been examined. Different stages of etchant penetration can be distinguished. The overall surface-near etchant uptake along tracks is always higher than the the one of the nonirradiated pristine material. Furthermore, the directional dependence of the etchant penetration during the incubation time is studied. Though the shapes of the etchant distributions along the tracks are practically the same in all directions, they differ in their absolute magnitudes. This can be explained by the different cross-sectional track areas exposed at the surface, which enable different etchant penetration efficiencies. Therefore, tracks which run more or less parallel to the surface normal show less etchant uptake than those being strongly tilted. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.